Naples prosecutors investigate woman's sex tape suicide

Members of the media crowd around the hearse of Tiziana Cantone as her mother Teresa Giglio, center, salutes it, during her funeral in Casalnuovo, near Naples, Italy, Thursday, Sept. 15, 2016. Italian prosecutors in Naples have opened an investigation into possible charges of instigation to suicide after a 31-year-old woman killed herself after failing in a long legal battle to get a pornographic video removed from the Internet. (Ciro Fusco/ANSA via AP)
(The Associated Press)

MILAN – Italian prosecutors in Naples have opened a criminal investigation after the suicide of a 31-year-old woman who had fought unsuccessfully to have a video showing her having sex expunged from the internet.

Chief prosecutor Francesco Greco said Friday that the investigation into possible charges of instigating suicide was being coordinated with another based on a defamation complaint the woman brought against four individuals last October.

The complaint remained open at the time of the woman's death on Tuesday.

According to media reports, the woman sent the video privately to a small group of people, but it quickly went viral and she became the target of insults and jokes. Her attempts to have the video removed from a series of platforms failed.